


love is more than telling me you want it

by surrenderer



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Season/Series 06
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-29
Updated: 2019-10-29
Packaged: 2021-01-06 07:57:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21223214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/surrenderer/pseuds/surrenderer
Summary: When he smiles at her, she feels warmth flooding back into her bones. She’d almost forgotten what it feels like, she’s been cold for so long.





	love is more than telling me you want it

**Author's Note:**

> titles by carly rae jepsen!
> 
> it is my Full Intention to have this be a 3-chapter piece, maybe 4, moving through seasons 6-8 and an epilogue. but i'm marking this as complete for now, because it is also my intention that all 4 chapters should be able to stand alone, in case i never get around to finishing the full work.
> 
> un-beta'ed, as always, so any and all mistakes are on me.

**i.**

“Where will you go?” Sansa hates how she sounds when she asks the question, but she has to know. If Jon wants to leave Castle Black and head south, she won’t have any options left. She can raise an army on her own to take back Winterfell in the Stark name, but she’ll likely die in the process, or someone will catch her and send her right back into Ramsay’s clutches.

She doesn’t say it, but she’ll shove Jon’s own Longclaw through her heart before letting Ramsay touch her again.

Jon looks over at her, and there’s something in his eyes she can’t quite decipher. It’s fond, and it’s familiar, and it’s a look that he might’ve given Arya once upon a time. “Where will _we_ go?” he corrects her gently, and Sansa’s breath hitches. When he smiles at her, she feels warmth flooding back into her bones. She’d almost forgotten what it feels like, she’s been cold for so long.  
  


**ii.**

“I like the wolf bit,” Jon says when he notices her new dress. It’s not as new as she’d like, but she’s had to make do with the few dresses left behind at Castle Black, picking apart cloth and seams and making something new out of it. It’s obvious that he doesn’t have a better compliment, but it’s a sincere one, so Sansa will take it. It’s been so long since she’s received a true compliment, one that isn’t flattery for an ulterior motive. Besides, she only needs a lead-in to her gift for him.

“Good, because I made this for you,” she says as she hands over a bundle of cloth and fur to him. The furs are new, as Ghost brought precious kills back to her, and the tanner at Castle Black skinned and treated the furs for her as long as she smiled kindly at him and gave him news from the South, but the cloth, like with her dress, is pulled from varying bolts laying around the castle. It’s not as if there was anyone else making use of it. “I made it like the one Father used to wear,” she adds gently, because Jon looks startled and pleased all at once, like he was not expecting her thoughtfulness. 

And why should he? For all that they are family and he says there is nothing to forgive, she still treated him harshly when they were younger, and some scars will always run deep. She would know. But Sansa wants to make amends—no, she _is_ making amends. Jon is her only brother now, and she will not lose him again. If they have to traipse around the North together, calling on their family’s bannermen and reminding them of their oaths, she will do everything in her power to make sure they survive the trek.

And if she whispered prayers to the Old Gods under her breath with every stitch into the leather straps and furs of Jon’s new cloak and every bit of embroidery of her new dress, that’s her secret to keep. She kept to the Seven when she was young, desperate to have the South embrace her, but she knows better now. The Seven will not listen to her, but perhaps her father’s gods will.

There may not be a godswood in Castle Black, but the wildlings tell her that the gods can hear prayers on the wind. There’s certainly enough wind here, next to the Wall, to carry her words, then. _Protect us. Protect Jon. Keep him safe. Keep us safe._ _Let us save Rickon and take Winterfell back. Please, please, please_. She repeated the mantra as her fingers bled with the speed of her needle, and now, she hands a new cloak to Jon and hopes that it will be enough.

**iii**.

It is not enough.

It is not enough, not by a long shot, and Sansa can already see how their future will unfold. Jon, trapped by Ramsay’s machinations, their army lost and scattered, so many lives lost. Hers and Jon’s included.

Sansa will not live to see past the battle, if this is what’s to come. 

But there is still a glimmer of hope. There has been no response to her raven, but she is certain Baelish will come. She stopped just short of making promises, but she knows what will get to him, and especially now, she knows his weaknesses. He will come, and he will bring the Knights of the Vale, if there is a chance at her once again.

For now, she watches in horror as their piecemeal army is overwhelmed by the Bolton forces. The wildlings are formidable, Lady Mormont’s eighty-two men are formidable, but they are no match for Ramsay’s army. She can barely spot Jon in the crush of it, but when she hears a trumpet in the distance, she turns her horse around and rides to the top of the hill for a better vantage point.

Blue banners. A falcon flying over a crescent moon. The Knights of the Vale ride for the battle, yelling and spurring their horses on, and they crash into the Bolton army’s defensive line exactly the way she’d hoped. Even with Lord Baelish drawing his horse up by her side, Sansa allows herself a small smile.

No one can protect anyone, it’s true. But she’s trying her damned hardest.

**iv**.

“I should’ve told you about him,” she says as they stand at the top of the battlements of Winterfell. Their home. They're _home_. “About the Knights of the Vale. I’m sorry.”

Jon is her brother, her only brother left in this world, and she’s hurt him. But their victory means more than his hurt feelings, and it’s only because they’re standing in Winterfell, with Stark banners all around them, that she feels safe in apologizing to him.

But she can’t stand the look in his eyes anymore. It’s how he looks at Petyr Baelish, wary and distrustful, and her heart will break once again if Jon pulls back from her now. It’s been so long since she’s been with family, since she’s been around anyone she could trust fully and with no hesitation. 

She hates to feel the prick of tears at her eyes, but there they are as she watches Jon step closer to her. “We need to trust each other,” he says softly. “We can’t fight a war amongst ourselves. We have so many enemies now.”

He looks so much like their father for a second, Sansa can’t even be sure that her eyes aren’t playing tricks on her. And then he reaches for her face and pulls her in—Sansa can feel his warm breath on her forehead, the gentle press of his lips for a beat, then two, then three—and then he pulls away. _I am your brother, and you can trust me_, his eyes say.

_I am your sister, and I know._

Even with the arrival of winter, Sansa knows she’ll never be cold again.


End file.
